Students not endangered in pornography case

PHOENIXVILLE — In response to the arrest of a former district employee for allegedly possessing child pornography, an internal investigation discovered few to no issues within the Phoenixville Area School District regarding safety and “student welfare,” according to Superintendent Alan Fegley.

“We went forth and looked at all our district policies and were asked to make sure we were doing everything we could to make sure our students were absolutely safe,” Fegley said at a Phoenixville Area School Board workshop meeting Thursday.

Troy Czukoski, 43, of Exton, was charged in March with possession of more than 150 but less than 300 images of children engaged in sexual acts on flash drives, CDs and DVDs.

Prosecutors later said they became aware of Czukoski’s activity when a search warrant served on a site selling child pornography turned up the principal’s name.

Advertisement

Czukoski served as principal at Phoenixville Area Middle School until February 2012, when he was selected to head the district’s virtual learning efforts in February 2012. He left to become principal of Springton Lake Middle School in Delaware County that summer.

According to district officials, no Phoenixville children were involved in Czukoski’s activity, which he pleaded guilty to May 10.

As part of the internal investigation, Fegley said the district corresponded with a U.S. Postal Inspector who subpoenaed the district for Czukoski’s personnel record in October.

The district also corresponded with the prosecutors involved in Czukoski’s case and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for advice and analysis.

“The one common theme that came back is that it’s extremely difficult in what they saw we were doing (to track possible perpetrators and), with one exception, we were doing everything we could in situations out there in making sure children weren’t exploited,” Fegley said.

The exception, according to Fegley, was that the district was not tracking what employees did on district computers and cell phones outside of district settings.

Fegley said that has been rectified and that all activity is now tracked automatically “no matter where or when ... in the world” an employee is.

“That is the one recommendation that they asked we add on,” Fegley said. “Our policies are all in order.”

He also said district employees are aware of this tracking and signed off on an agreement regarding it.

Those experts that the district talked to “commended us for all that we were doing,” Fegley told the school board.

By all accounts, he said, it is very difficult to point out a possible offender before a criminal investigation because they can “blend” in.

“It’s not the person you think is in the basement kind of being called a creeper,” Fegley said. “It is a person that is out there. We have to be vigilant. We are vigilant right now ... we’ve upped our watch.”

When the postal inspector subpoenaed Phoenixville for Czukoski’s record, the district was not told at the time exactly what the investigation involved and wouldn’t find out until charges were filed in mid-March.

A week later, the school board considered hiring outside counsel to help investigate if it could have done anything to identify any wrongdoing by Czukoski. Eventually, however, the board decided to have Fegley look into investigating.